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As a soloist with the Royal Ballet and a principal dancer with the London Ballet Festival, Helen Starr danced many of the lead roles in classical ballets. But she didn’t dance the role of Juliet to Sergei Prokofiev’s score until 1985 when her husband Alun Jones, then artistic director, choreographed his version of the ballet in Louisville.

Now retired from the company, Jones and Starr return every five or six years to stage the version of Shakespeare’s tragic love story that they created together. They open another production this weekend in the Kentucky Center’s Whitney Hall.

Starr spoke with us about her history with “Romeo and Juliet” and how Shakespeare’s words are translated into the body language of dance.